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FIFA pres warns against buying of big clubs

FIFA president Joseph Blatter has called for a stop to millionaires buying more football clubs. “We have to be careful with those who want to use football and not serve football,” Blatter said in a press conference in Madrid. “We are working conscientiously to know how transferences are made,” the FIFA president said. “We have identified a system which, if we do not stop it, is going to hurt our football. There are many unidentified non-transparent owners, with headquarters in the British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, Great Cayman,” he said, as quoted by DPA.

Blatter warned of “investors” and their effect particularly on English football. “Investors come from Iran, Russia, the US, Georgia ... And now we have seen that the president of the Icelandic federation has bought a club, West Ham. Clubs can be a political platform, we have the example of Italy. We have to be careful with those who want to use football and not serve football,” he insisted.

According to Blatter, FIFA has already taken on board a “representative of Brazilian police,” since they observed that Portugal is the main gate of entry to Europe for Brazilian footballers. “And we observe that Argentines enter more through Spain, maybe due to a language question,” Blatter indicated.

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As China signs up some of the world’s leading football
players, Simon Chadwick explains how this incredibly ambitious
football strategy is sending shock waves around the world game:

EACH YEAR, EUROPEAN
football clubs are able to buy and sell players during two specific periods of
time, known as transfer windows. One of the windows is in summer; the other is
in winter and in Europe this year’s has just closed. Normally these windows are characterised
by the lavish, high-profile spending of football’s elite – the likes of Real
Madrid, Manchester United and Bayern Munich. Indeed, a
week ago the English Premier League was being heralded as
being the £1
billion player transfer market (the value of transactions that took
place during 2015). But in one astounding move, everything
that many people thought they knew about football and the transfer of its
players was turned on its head. Last Tuesday, Columbian
international Jackson
Martineztransferred
from Atletico Madrid of Spain to China's G…